Travel has never held a warm place in Linda's heart. Her father was one of the pioneers of NASCAR, racing alongside the likes of Lee Petty, Tim and Fonty Flock, Curtis Turner and other early greats, driving all night after working all day in order to catapult his car around tracks all over the south. But once he had gotten racing out of his system, he was the consummate homebody, rarely traveling far enough from home to have to spend the night in an unfamiliar bed. Linda comes by it honestly.
That's why this thirteen hundred mile round trip to Charlotte, NC and back is such proof of her character. Even when she wasn't feeling particularly well, she never complained. Well...almost never. We had a short conversation about our respective love languages on the way home. It seems I wasn't talking to her as much as she needed. Darn; it happened again! I had taken along for the trip a box of notepaper and pens so I could write the encouragement letters for the Keryx prison ministry weekend coming up. I need to have fifty two of them written by the end of next week, along with six letters to the men from our church who are attending the Koinonia weekend in just five days. When we weren't at the rehearsal gathering or the wedding itself, I was feverishly scribbling away, not paying much (read "any") attention to her. Our divergent love languages did their stuff: Because my love language is Time, I am content just to have her around; hers is Words of Affirmation, so if I'm not talking, she's not getting filled up. You would think that after 44 years of marriage I would have gotten somewhat proficient in her native tongue, but I am a linguistic Neanderthal, a fact she called to my attention this morning before starting on the return trip. Now, I may be slow, but I'm not stupid, so aside from the time we listened to our book on CDs, I talked.
To someone for whom words come easily, this doesn't sound so difficult. I know people who can literally talk nonstop for hours on end, hardly pausing for breath. I don't understand that. It is totally incomprehensible to me. Linda sometimes will ask me what I'm thinking. If I'm thinking anything at all, which is not a given, it often isn't interesting enough even for me, so why would I want to inflict such drivel on anyone else? I am perfectly content to pass an entire day without uttering a single word, BUT...today I talked. Not nonstop, mind you, but about as close as I'll probably ever come. Why? Because I love her. That's it. God gave her to me to simply love her, and I do. Filling her emotional tanks is important to me, and since I'm usually the one holding the hose, today I talked. It was a long ride, but we made it intact, both body and soul, for which I give heartfelt thanks tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment